We do not always have the time for a two-hour movie. No one ever wants to sit down and watch a one-hour TV drama knowing that they might not be able to stick around for an entire second episode. With this said, 90-minutes (perhaps 75, maybe 99) is the ideal runtime. This concise time has given us some of the most rewatchable movies that may not win any Academy Awards, but are properly fun-sized for the audience. That is what NinetyForChill.com is all about, the fun-sized sweets be it experimental terror, outlandish horror, over-the-top action, or the most radical comedies and dramas. Your host Russ Stevens and his friends chat about the movies that require few cuts to put on basic cable when it comes to fitting into a two-hour time slot and embrace all the craziness that the censors will need to bleep or blur.
Episodes
Tuesday Jun 20, 2023
Tuesday Jun 20, 2023
Andrew "@CouchManBakes" Tiede has been one of the most reliable and fun repeat guest to bless "NinetyForChill" with his presence. He has really helped CatBusRuss make great audio content, so it is about time that he got to chat about a feature that he has been pushing for since " Big Trouble in Little China": CouchMan Lo Pan vs. Jorge Shen". That picture is "Tombstone", another feature starring Kurt Russell.
But this picture is 2 hours and 10 minutes long. It does not fit the format for a podcast dedicated to features between 70 and 100 minutes. How will we get this to work?
CatBus has been trying to offer up some work arounds. Thanks to an experiment that the "Screen Drafts" podcast came up with to reassess their past episodes, The Marathon, a compromise was made possible. Our host and his guest will each make up their own tribute night to perhaps the greatest supporting actor of all time, Sam Elliot. Both showcases will end with the most beloved take on the tale of Wyatt Earp, but each moderator will have their own format. Andrew gets two two-hour movies and a grill to open up "Sasquatch Cinema House". His competitor gets three 100-minute timeslots and a popcorn machine to debut the "Six-Raven Moviehouse".
Will "The Good Dinosaur", "The Big Bang", and "Thank You for Smoking" draw more people to Russ's cinema in spite of "Roadhouse" and "Tombstone" being ran back-to-back? Will having to endure "Ghost Rider" ruin Andrew's audiences night before it gets started. Since both movie theaters are BYOB, who knows?
Tuesday Jun 13, 2023
Tuesday Jun 13, 2023
Nothing seems to be working out for CatBusRuss. He is doing a lot better mentally, but that maybe out of spite. The day after he finished producing "Toss Back Tuesday: Jim Carrey Under 100 Minutes", the podcast scheduling plans were all screwed up. "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" was the big Blu-Ray release for June 6, 2023. Its theatrical run was released the week prior to the April movie CatBus wanted to see the most, Nicolas Cage starring as Dracula in "Renfield", so the resources our host used to find out that the physical release date of the Nicholas Hoult film was going to be a week after the billion-dollar cartoon seemed correct. You can only imagine his dismay when he started ringing out customers who brough up the vampire disc along side the plumber flick.
Russ did get around to seeing the movie when it was still in theaters. This would have been in its third week of release. As noted in "Nicolas Cage & The Unbearable Weight of Massive Filmography", our host ended up dealing with unexpected cancellations of this feature during its second weekend. He decided to sit on the review he recorded from the parking lot. Being the only other person in the cinema for the flick, expecting the physical release to be just a couple of weeks away seemed like a fair assumption. Sadly, Comcast/Universal seemed to do nothing but fumble in their efforts to make this feature profitable. Fortunately, "NinetyForChill: The #Podcast" is going to make an effort to further make this feature relevant.
Monday Jun 05, 2023
Monday Jun 05, 2023
If there was anything you could count on as brief, fun films, it was cartoons. Then the Disney "Renaissance" came, and animated features became longer and longer. Joe Golwitzer (@quidpro_joe) and ThePoeticCritic (CatBusRuss's big sister) look back the time where VHS was king and animation was cheap. Joe and @CatBusRuss chat about TV shows that were adapted for the big screen. ThePoeticCritic and our host go on and on about animated features from the 1980's addressing at least one feature for each year. If you were not the youngest child in the family, you learned to become a fan of animation to remain sane because you know the younger siblings are going to demand these feature to be played on a constant loop.
Monday May 29, 2023
Monday May 29, 2023
Help NinetyForChill: The #Podcast get away from paywalls by subscribing to "Ninety For Chill: The #Podcast with @CatBusRuss".
CatBusRuss could not have fallen into a more appropriate way to close out the month of May (a.k.a. AniMay [anime + May]). Coinciding with the release of "Fast X", our host watched a couple of features that actually succeed at what the Vin Diesel franchise tries to capture. These are crazy stories that do not get caught up in male soap opera and "Just Kiss Already!" moments. Unlike "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, both "Redline" and "MFKZ" are must see films for entirely different reasons.
Neither of them are thankfully a "Point Break" knock off. Each represents an element that "The Fast" franchise that just seems to be too ridiculous. "MFKZ" is all about the craziness presumed of non-white communities and how action packed that must be. "Redline" is all about the living life a quarter mile at a time, or should I say parsec. Each feature should be seen by any animation fan. One for its "Saints Row" vibe. The other for nearly being perfect.
Monday May 22, 2023
Monday May 22, 2023
"The Truman Show" was a feature that some would say has aged like a fine wine, but there seems to be many who still have a bitter taste in their mouth. What would Hollywood be like if this feature received its roses back in 1998 instead of 2022 at Cannes? Would Jim Carrey have become the post-modern Tom Hanks? Is he American enough to usurp the two-time Oscar winner's greatest title of "America's Dad"?
Before this podcast recording, CatBusRuss had only seen the third act of this Peter Weir classic. He was thoroughly impressed by the direction and could tell that Carrey was providing the performance of his lifetime. The first chance he found a discount on the digital release, our host knew it was a must buy. Finding the time, and perhaps the motivation, to watch it was the challenge.
His living situation the past seven years could be to blame. Perhaps he did not want to break the initial rules of the "NinetyForChill: The #Podcast". This feature is officially three minutes too long. More than likely though, it may have been the thought of further enduring ThePoeticCritic's obsession with everything that was late nineties Jim Carrey. This week, CatBus faces all of those challenges with a 130 minute conversation with his big sister about what may be one of her favorite features of all time.
As for Ani-May, CatBus watched the return of Studio Ghibli with Goro Miyazaki's "Earwig and the Witch", another tale of strange adoption.
Monday May 15, 2023
Monday May 15, 2023
Help NinetyForChill: The #Podcast get away from paywalls by subscribing to "Ninety For Chill: The #Podcast with @CatBusRuss".
CatBusRuss is pondering how often he should be releasing new episodes of "Ninety For the Chill". This current season has had a great balance of episodes dedicated to his own personal binges and conversations with great guests. But with so many podcasts having a monthly or biweekly release schedule, is the CatBus working too hard?
The episode for next week is in the can, so this week, our host is keeping up the ani-May theme by watching Studio Ghibli's spiritual successor's, Studio Ponoc, first feature, "Mary and the Witch's Flower". It is a fun kids film. Then CatBus pulls out some reviews that sum up his own maturity. It starts with coming of age in the punk rock world with "London Town" and moves on to the oversexed college experience with Gregg Araki's "Kaboom".
From sexually explicit cinema, CatBus makes a quick transition to the other extreme of indie cinema with the Soska Sisters' remake of David Cronenberg's "Rabid". Cronenberg was one of the two patron saints of this podcast. The other is Stuart Gordon. What sounds better than Gordon with Lance Henriksen? To find out what that is like, you will hear a review for "The Pit and the Pendulum". If that is not enough of a Henriksen fix, stick around for a review of Stan Winston's directorial debut, "Pumpkinhead".
Monday May 08, 2023
Monday May 08, 2023
One of the worse things about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they insist that you stick around until the credits conclude for what is essentially a tease for the next feature in the franchise. It is far more forgivable in "Turning Red" to just feature the father dancing to some boy band, but it is still not part of the narrative of the feature that you paid to see.
So what if you cut out the six minutes of credits and the teaser for an inevitable sequel to a feature that is only 50 seconds past 100 minutes? You have sold CatBusRuss on allowing "NinetyForChill: The #Podcast" to address Ryan Reynolds in his greatest role "Deadpool". Leave it to Andrew Tiede to find another loophole in the parameters of this movie podcast. Like Han Solo established, the feature is 100 minutes, if you round down.
As a bonus, CatBus pays tribute to the month of AniMAY by finally getting "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence", and ends up giving more credence to the underappreciated quality of the controversial, live-action adaptation of the franchise. If only Scarlett Johansson and Reynolds would have made it, the synergy of this episode would demand admiration.
Monday May 01, 2023
Monday May 01, 2023
It was an inevitability that Nicolas Cage was going to get at least one episode of "Ninety For Chill" dedicated to his works. With the amount that he works, there maybe more to come. As long as he keeps it weird of course.
CatBusRuss was doing his best to catch a showing of "Renfield" before it leaves the big screens this week. That feature is not quite the box office success that was expected, so our host was hedging his bets for a slice of podcasted fried gold by finally going through his cheap, "How can you not buy this Nick Cage flick?" collection. "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" features the best of all things currently nerdy with Cage and Pedro Pascal playing off each other, and was critically acclaimed. If only a Champaign/Urbana multiplex could offer a great theater going experience, the feature would be a great A-feature of a double feature.
Unfortunately, Phoenix Theatres 16 in Savoy must base what shows they will go through on what money they are getting from online sales. IMDb's showtimes be damned. It maybe a conspiracy to stop audiences from cashing in their emergency tickets based on previous poor experiences. So the weekend ended in a long night for the CatBus. Once he got home from trying to make something out of getting dressed on a day off, "Jiu Jitsu", from the minds that rebooted the "Kickboxer" franchise, was next on the queue. The idea of Cage versus a "Predator" knock off should have made major bank. Find out why this was the definition of a B-Feature.
Monday Apr 24, 2023
Monday Apr 24, 2023
This week's episode is proof that you can actually meet genuine people at comic cons. One half of "In Love, with Movies" hosts, Nic, comes on the show to chat about Ruben Fleischer's only undisputedly good feature "Zombieland". CatBusRuss and his guest did not take a lot of notes suggesting that it maybe one of the best paced comedies of the current century. Watching the feature was more than a pleasant palate cleanser after visiting "FeaDotCom (.com)" for Ally's Accessories Shop on Etsy's "Trash Feature Revue".
The two end up realizing the kind of comfort cinema sci-fi comedies can be. It is only appropriate that it pulls so much from "Ghostbusters" with very little shame. Zombieland's characters may not evolve, but like the three NYU professors who got into paranormal investigation, they do not have to. If they did, the audience might leave feeling betrayed (which may explain the lack of success of "Gangster Squad" and what CatBus feels is an underappreciated sequel "Double Tap"). If the premise is enough, why mess around with it too much? Of course this film got a crappy television show when Amazon said hold my beer.
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
This is essentially a follow up to last week's episode "Gold Diggers of 1933 and Nintendo 2023". CatBusRuss took time to defend "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", so there was a temptation to see the film that he was attempting to stand up for. But one movie and no guest did not feel right. Also in that episode, our host explained to ThePoeticCritic why the "John Wick" franchise qualifies for NinetyForChill: The #Podcast. If you make a perfect movie that is under 100 minutes, you need to expand that universe, thus earning more time with your sequel.
The decision on what feature to see at the cinema came down to this: What other movie could the CatBus watch at home that would be an appropriate double feature? Sadly, there are not a lot of video games that are either adapted as family movies or animated ones. Russ never played "Rachet & Clank" and he might need to save "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" for another Jim Carrey conversation with his big sister. His iTunes collection does have the Bob Odenkirk comedy "Nobody" which was written by Derek Kolstad, the writer of the "John Wick Trilogy". It seems the better double feature is "Nobody" and "John Wick: Chapter 4".